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Hello, I want to know if is possible for people to pronounce the "g" in Dutch the same as in English, for example, as in the word " good", and if people in The Netherlands would still be able to understand what is said ( given that everything else is pronounce the way it is in Dutch)

I like the Dutch language, would like to learn it, but I just don't like those " throat" sounds. I've seen that in some parts of the Netherlands such as Limburg, this sound is made " softer", but I still don't find it appealing.

I've noticed that Spanish speakers in peninsular Spain pronounce the " j" somewhat similar to the Dutch " g". While in Latin America, people would pronounce it like English "h", without making any " throat" sounds. People from both sides of the Atlantic understand each other perfectly.

I don't know if the Dutch of the Dutch Caribbean has gone to many "transformations" in pronunciations like other European languages have done across the Atlantic like English and Spanish.

windmill333 wrote:Hello, I want to know if is possible for people to pronounce the "g" in Dutch the same as in English, for example, as in the word " good", and if people in The Netherlands would still be able to understand what is said ( given that everything else is pronounce the way it is in Dutch) People would probably understand you, but think you speak bad Dutch. The English [g] sound is not native to our language, but as many of us do speak English we are familiar enough with it and some of the English loans are pronounced with it.

I like the Dutch language, would like to learn it, but I just don't like those " throat" sounds. I've seen that in some parts of the Netherlands such as Limburg, this sound is made " softer", but I still don't find it appealing.

i have the same thing with Spanish. It is a rather ugly language. I much prefer Portuguese

I've noticed that Spanish speakers in peninsular Spain pronounce the " j" somewhat similar to the Dutch " g". While in Latin America, people would pronounce it like English "h", without making any " throat" sounds. People from both sides of the Atlantic understand each other perfectly.

I don't know if the Dutch of the Dutch Caribbean has gone to many "transformations" in pronunciations like other European languages have done across the Atlantic like English and Spanish.

Somewhat, but not so much because independence is only 1975 for Suriname and not at all for the islands. The one place where a lot of divergence took place is in South Africa / Namibia. This is why Afrikaans is actually considered a separate language. Interestingly enough, the spirant g has not changed.

I guess that depends on how you define "possible". You could do it and yes, people would understand you easily enough - many foreigners have difficulty with the correct pronunciation of the "g". But would it be correct, well, no, it would show people very clearly that you were a foreigner, even if your pronunciation was excellent in all other regards. The north-Dutch "g" is indeed a lot like a Spanish "j", so that one shouldn't be that hard for you, the south-Dutch and Flemish version is probably more challenging (but less throaty and so less ugly for you ).

ngonyama wrote: People would probably understand you, but think you speak bad Dutch. The English [g] sound is not native to our language, but as many of us do speak English we are familiar enough with it and some of the English loans are pronounced with it.

Hello, thank you very much for your response. 
First, I want to apologize if anyone got offended by my original post. I did not intend it to offend.
In regards to “ bad Dutch”.( I’m not saying that you think that that would be bad Dutch, but other people might think that) . In my humble opinion ( I’m not a linguist), I don’t think that such a miniscule deviance would classified that as “ bad”. At most it would be classified as one more dialect of the same language. Sometimes people that speak different dialects of the same language would say that the other dialect is “ bad”.
There was a case in Spain, not long ago, of a Canarian kid named Yael, that featured in a commercial for some chocolate company called Colacao. The peninsulares ( as the Canarians call the people from Mainland Spain), were making fun of this kid on tv and on social media. The Canarians felt very offended, an a brouhaha ensued.

ngonyama wrote:i have the same thing with Spanish. It is a rather ugly language. I much prefer Portuguese

Well, “ beauty is in the eye of the beholder” like the saying goes. I find Dutch to be beautiful as it is, a mild change in the pronunciation of one consonant would not make it “ more beautiful” or “ more uglier”, given that 100% of the grammar is the same, the ortography, and the rest of the pronunciations is 99 % the same, and everybody else understands it. It would still be Dutch.
Castilian ( Spanish) has a great variety of dialects, in the vast geographical area of the world where it is used. For example, in Argentina and Uruguay, the initial “y” is usually pronounced as “ sh”, so a word like “ yo” is “ sho”, yate is “ shate”.
In Peninsular Spain, the “ j” sounds kind of like the Arabic “kh”, but in Latin American, is just like the Engish “ h”.
All of them are equally Castilian, all of them are equally beautiful. This variety gives beauty to the language. I wouldn’t consider American English more beautiful or more ugly than say, British English and vice versa, both are mutually intelligible.

ngonyama wrote:Somewhat, but not so much because independence is only 1975 for Suriname and not at all for the islands. The one place where a lot of divergence took place is in South Africa / Namibia. This is why Afrikaans is actually considered a separate language. Interestingly enough, the spirant g has not changed.

This is an interesting field of research, how and “ why” these European languages have changed throu out distance and the centuries.
I’ ve noticed that in Aruba and Curacao, the main language of everyday life is Papiamento ( although Dutch is co-official).
Apparently Dutch didn't have the transformation that other languages , such as English and
Castilian have gone thru across the ocean from Europe.

Last edited by windmill333 on Thu Apr 11, 2013 4:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

Quetzal wrote:I guess that depends on how you define "possible". You could do it and yes, people would understand you easily enough - many foreigners have difficulty with the correct pronunciation of the "g". But would it be correct, well, no, it would show people very clearly that you were a foreigner, even if your pronunciation was excellent in all other regards. The north-Dutch "g" is indeed a lot like a Spanish "j", so that one shouldn't be that hard for you, the south-Dutch and Flemish version is probably more challenging (but less throaty and so less ugly for you ).

Hello Quetzal, dankje for your response !

I understand that I will " always" sound like a non-native speakers, regardless whether I use pronounce the "g" as a guttural, or otherwise. What matters to me most is that people would be able to understand me. There are native English speakers of Castilian that don't roll the the initial " r" and the "rr", example, when saying " carrera", they say " carera"; but I'm able to understand them perfectly, there are no ambiguities. The cases where you might find some are about .01%, like " carro"(car), an " caro"(expensive), but you can tell the meaning by the context of the conversation

I speak Caribbean Spanish, the " j" does not have a guttural sound, like they have in peninsular Spain ( The Canary Islands don't have that sound). Canary Islands are very different from mainland Spain. Caribbean Spanish is derived from Canarian, Andalusian and African influences. Many Flemish people immigrated to the Canaries during the times of Carlos V,( Habsburg King born in Flanders) as you might know.